


Shine On Me Again

by NervousAsexual



Category: Fallout 3
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/F, Grief/Mourning, Platonic Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-16 01:47:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28948425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NervousAsexual/pseuds/NervousAsexual
Summary: Catherine, it's all gone to pieces without you.
Relationships: Catherine and Madison Li, Star Paladin Cross/Madison Li
Kudos: 1
Collections: Captain's Blend





	Shine On Me Again

She looks just like you, Catherine.

Like it wasn't enough for James to waltz in repeating all the same wild ideas that we chased twenty years ago, like that wasn't enough to dredge up the past, she turns up asking about him.

When I first saw her I figured it was another resident come wandering in to gawk, but then I actually looked and there were your big sparkling brown eyes, your wild hair, your crooked smile. If I believed in ghosts I would have thought you were back to convince me to play nice with your airhead partner. But she is different, too, in a hundred different ways, and even after nineteen years I can see them all like you're standing beside her. She has her father's nose, she's not half as short, and her hair is pink. You'd like that, I bet. No, I know you would. Because she's your daughter, Catherine, and I know you would love her no matter what--but also because I know it would make you smile.

She wanted James, and I just... I didn't know what to tell her. Did he tell me he was going to Vault 112? I don't know. When he came I didn't want to listen to a thing he said because he abandoned us. And I know you would say it's not like that, he did the best he could for the only piece of you left, and I know it's true. But that doesn't make it hurt less. It doesn't change the fact that I lost my best friend.

I told her what I knew--James was doing his Project Purity schtick twenty years too late, and her best bet was probably the Jefferson Memorial. She gave me your smile again and then... and then she hugged me, Catherine. She has your smile and your eyes and your hug.

That's a silly thing to say, isn't it? A hug is a hug. There's no practical difference between one and another. But I swear, when she put her arms around me I could close my eyes and pretend it was you so easily. She's every bit your daughter.

When she left I told myself that it was the most I had to do. She wanted her dad, and I told her as best I could where to find him. I wasn't going to let myself get sucked into this pipe dream, not again, and yet when I went to bed that night I kept thinking of that night we spent up on the scaffolding at the memorial, just you and me and Cross. I could almost hear your voice. "I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life, freely." It always sounded so pretentious when I said it, but I never felt that with you.

You, me, and Cross. You and me and Cross. God, I would give anything to be back there just one night longer. I hate that feeling because I have no regrets except this: I couldn't save you. James and I working together wasn't enough, which is how I knew Project Purity was never going to reach fruition. Nobody believed in it like you. You were the one we all believed in.

I keep thinking of us, sleeping bags all stretched out under the sky. It was so cold! But you were never cold, were you? I don't know how you did it. Even Cross was cold that night, the two of us huddling up to you like baby birds to their mother, and you laughed and we laughed... And then you sang that song. It's been so long I've forgotten most of the words and I've never met anyone else who knew the song which is heartbreaking, Catherine, it made me cry when I thought about how we'd lost so much when we lost you, from all the hope we had down to that one silly little song.

_Weave, weave, weave me the sunshine_

_Out of the falling rain_

_Weave me the hope of a new tomorrow_

_And fill my cup again._

Just a silly little song and it was gone and it was never coming back. It makes me cry even now to think about it. Isn't that funny? All the things I miss about you and it's that song that always, always does me in.

I'm crying now, and I was crying then, thinking that I'd sent your little girl out into the wasteland after your stupid, brilliant husband and damned them both. I don't know what I thought I should have done; damn it, I'm a scientist, not a mercenary guard. I wouldn't have been any help, but all I had to do was sit alone in the silence of my room in Rivet City and the guilt just killed me.

I forgot one thing, though. She's your daughter, Catherine, and, like mother like daughter, hell itself can't stop her when she wants something.

She came back with James and it was almost like old times when they walked in again. She looks so much like you that for a moment I forgot, and I knew that I believed in her the way I believed in you.

Is that silly, Catherine? Between you and your wild dreams and your kid and her single-minded determination I felt like--still feel a little like--an apostate come crawling back to the gates of heaven. Why do I even ask? You never found anything silly, did you? I could tell you the most absurd thing, tell you that I wanted to start proselytizing to super mutants, and you'd be supportive, because you're crazy, Catherine, and I love you for it.

Well, what else was I going to do at that point? She and James were going back to the memorial, back to where it all began, and I want you to know that even though every sensible thought in my head was that this was reaching for an unreachable star I went anyway.

We called Agincourt and Dargon back, and I told the others that I was going to chase that star. Apologized to them, too. I had a lot of responsibilities in Rivet City, but I couldn't leave this unfinished and they would be alright without me. At least, that's what I told them. But one of the scientists and one of the workers wanted to come with me. You wouldn't know either one of them. The worker was Garza, and he has a heart condition but insisted he wanted to be a part of this no matter the risk. How could I, of all people, argue with that? The scientist was Janice Kaplinski and her I begged to please just stay. She wasn't much more than a kid, not much older than your daughter, and she's always been sort of flustered around me. Remember how I was the first time I met Cross? She had it that bad, I guess, and it felt like taking advantage of her to let her follow me for no better reasons than love and admiration. But that's what I was doing, wasn't it? Throwing myself back out into the wastes for no better reason that I love you, Catherine, and I wanted to finish what you started.

I should have put my foot down with her. I should have told her that the Rivet City lab needed her more than we did, I should have been so merciless that she'd stay just to be away from me, I should have done anything I could. But I didn't. I just couldn't talk her out of doing something foolish for the greater good. She was like you that way.

The memorial was so quiet. I couldn't believe it. We used to hear the super mutants fighting out there from the city, from _inside the city,_ and there was nothing left of them but a few piles of laser ash. Guess who was responsible for that? I don't know where your daughter learned to shoot like that. Give her a laser rifle and apparently she can keep pace with Cross.

James sent her down to take care of some maintenance in the sub-basement. He and Janice were working in the rotunda while she did that and I thought they had it down so I went to check on some of the computers. That's the only reason I wasn't there when the goddamned Enclave arrived. I was in the back room and suddenly the vertibirds were everywhere and there were troops kicking down the door and rushing into the purifier. There was a man in a uniform instead of power armor, an officer, I figured, and I grabbed this piece of pipe, thinking I could creep up on him and bash his damned brains in, and maybe that would make the rest scatter. But they locked the purifier door behind them and all I could do was stand there on the other side of the glass, watching while the officer started spouting off about how this was the Enclave's project now. Janice was still there and I thought how scared must she be, she's been in Rivet City most of her life, but she wouldn't look at me. She was braver than I could have been. She just stood there looking at James like she was waiting for orders.

That was when she got back--your daughter--and she ran right up to the purifier door and did everything short of nuking it but you know that door, you know how it's built. I knew James could see her and you could see him thinking about going for his gun. It made me want to grab him by the throat. You know how terrible he is with weapons; was he really going to let himself get chewed up by gatling lasers in front of his only child? But he didn't, which is more sense than I gave him credit for. He kept his cool and tried to tell them that the project didn't work, wouldn't work, was probably a long shot.

The officer didn't like that. He said something to one of the ones in power armor and I couldn't take my eyes off Janice so I was looking when there was this awful _crack_ and she went down so hard. At first I couldn't tell what had happened but there was this hole in her forehead, and the blood just came pouring down her face.

She wasn't a great scientist, Catherine, but she was a person, a good person who would never hurt a soul, and all she ever seemed to want was to impress me. And it got her killed.

I wasn't watching when the rest of it happened. I just kept looking at Janice, waiting for it to have all suddenly been a mistake and for her to sit up and say something so pithy and plain that it would make you laugh. She didn't. She didn't move, didn't even breathe, and it wasn't until the power armor units around her started dropping that I realized what was happening.

I still don't know entirely what happened. Whatever James did flooded the purifier with radiation, so much radiation, and your little girl just screamed. But what could she do? What could any of us do? He was dead the minute the Enclave got wind of what we were doing.

So he died brave, Catherine. Janice was already dead and he knew he was the only collateral damage so he let in the radiation that killed him. He came right up to the glass and looked at your girl and told her to run, and as she was watching him...

I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I hope he finds you, wherever you are.

There wasn't anything I could do for him but her, her i could help. I told her we had to leave and she turned to me and said, "I can't leave my dad in there."

I told her the truth, that there was nothing she could do and that even if she could open the purifier the radiation would kill her instantly. I think she might have if I hadn't been there. But I couldn't let you down again, now, could I? God knows I've done enough.

I took her out through the sewers, the same way we left nineteen years ago. I told her she had to stay with us because we couldn't survive without her. I told myself it was because she needed a purpose, something to keep her from just staying there with James, waiting to die. Anything to make myself feel better about sending your daughter into the lion's den with just a laser rifle, right? But that's exactly what I did.

I'm sorry, Catherine. I wish I'd done it differently, but you know I'm a coward. I always have been. But she's like you. She didn't question it, just nodded and disappeared into the darkness like one in-over-her-head girl could really stand a chance against trained soldiers in power armor.

I don't know what to say. I let her--no, encouraged her--to put herself in harm's way for us. I can tell myself as much as I want that it was for the good of the others, Garza and them, but I can't lie to you. As much as I love you, as much as I miss you, I'm not quite ready to see you yet.  
We all huddled there in the middle of that stinking, freezing sewer. The last time I passed through here we had Cross with us, and she was a trained soldier working in tandem with three other paladins from the Brotherhood, and we didn't linger. Now I didn't have a choice but to look around and... god, Catherine. There were skeletons. If I had to guess they were people sheltering from the bombs two hundred years ago, and I thought, my god, we're going to join them, down below the blasted hellscape we were trying to save.

I'm not asking for forgiveness or sympathy. I just want you to understand. The laser fire started and I thought that was it. She was dead. We were next. But it kept going. I didn't understand why; still don't, if I'm being honest. Maybe it was you. Maybe you were the angel watching over her that day. Somebody must have been, because she shouldn't have been able to kill all those soldiers and come back to us still standing with nothing worse than a burn on her cheek and a twisted ankle.

I wish I could say that I took the gun off a body and didn't let her do it alone. If I'd given it any thought I would have known it was the right thing to do but there were... complications. You remember I said I brought Garza with us from the lab at Rivet City? I knew before all this began he had heart trouble. We--Janice and I--were able to synthesize pills to help but the stress of the day was so much, and we didn't exactly have time to run back to the bunks and get them. I wouldn't have noticed if Alex hadn't asked him "You okay?" in that tone of voice that says he's scared as hell. I turned the flashlight on him and Garza was whiter than a cloud, sweating and shivering and eyes as wide as dinner plates and I knew he was going to die down there and it would be my fault. He was a life I'd held in my hands and broken without a second thought. He would be alive if it weren't for me. Just like Janice.

Just like you.

That was when she came back, as I realized what was happening, and I screamed at her that Garza needed something now. Buffout? Stimpaks?

"I don't have buffout," she told me. "How many stimpaks do you need?"

If I had been prepared he would only have needed one or two, but I wasn't prepared. It would take at least five to keep his heart going.

She looked at me, looking just like you, scuffed and bleeding and crying but talking like it was all nothing. She said, "I only have four. Is that enough?"

It would have to be, I told her. I doubt I was nice about it. I gave him the stims one after the other after the other after the other and Alex pulled his arm up around his shoulder, and I took his other arm and we ran through those sewers.

I could feel him still shaking and sweating and I knew he was going to die, that nothing I did was enough. God, it hurt just as much as it did when it was you I was losing. There must be something wrong with me, because how could it end like this again? Between you and him... every heart I try to heal I end up hurting.

Thank god your daughter found her way out of those sewers because I couldn't see through the tears or breathe through them and we all would have died there if she hadn't pointed out the graffiti on the wall. It was the Lyons' Pride emblem, Agincourt said. We had to be close.

We were close, but the ghouls were closer.

Living in Rivet City meant I hadn't seen a ghoul up close in years so I wasn't ready for the smell. It was like death and the way they growl was like ice forming in my legs. They seemed to pop out of the walls, just suddenly there on every side, grabbing at us. If I'd had the breath to do it I would have screamed. I damned all these people by listening to James and his stupid ideas. This was all my fault... and then the rain of laser fire was all around us.

Was that you, too? Were you the angel watching over me, over all of us, and did you send that patrol? Part of me wants so badly to think so. It would mean that you're not really gone, and even after nineteen years I don't want to believe that you. Catherine, I held your hand as the warmth of life left it and I still fool myself into thinking you're still here.

I don't know how none of us were hit--I guess it was your intervention too--but we weren't and I begged them to give me another stim, just to keep Garza going, because we had to be close now, didn't we? We were, the knight said. Get topside, he told us. So we did.

Catherine, I've never been so glad to see that wasteland in my life. We came up at the side of the Citadel and I knew they had facilities, they could still save Garza, so I made Agincourt take my place and ran ahead, up those steps to that gate and I begged them to give us asylum. I didn't know the knight on watch. He was young, not much older than Janice was, and you could tell he still took everything straight by the book. He told me to get lost. We were just wastelanders to him.

I don't know what I said to him. Maybe nothing at all. But I fought my way past him, up to the intercom and I screamed into it that I knew Lyons was in there and if he had any shred of humanity in him he would let us in. The next thing I knew there was a plasma pistol at the back of my head. I was going to see you again, I realized.

But the knight didn't pull the trigger. Before he could, the gates were opening and there he was. Elder Lyons.

After that most of what happened is a blur. He gave us shelter. Sarah was there. We got Garza to the infirmary. I don't know what happened to your little girl. She was behind us one minute and then the next she was gone and I didn't see her again until I saw her in the scribes' library, hours later. Days later? I don't know.

They gave me this room and told me I should get some rest, I'd had a hard day. Yeah, no kidding. But I couldn't sleep after that. I was so full of adrenaline and all I could do was walk from one wall to another, wearing a path into the tile and telling myself that I should have stayed in Rivet City. This was all my fault. Janice was dead because of me. I know what you'd say--I didn't pull the trigger. I didn't make that soldier shoot her. But Catherine, she wouldn't have been there if it weren't for me. I know she would have followed me to hell itself if I asked it. We could be back in Rivet City even now, tweaking the hydroponics and listening to the creaking of the ship.

Then there was a knock on the door and when I opened it there she was.

Did you know she's a star paladin now? I wasn't surprised because, well, it's Cross. Lyons would have been a fool not to promote her. But I wasn't expecting her to be here at all and suddenly here she was, looking at me with those eyes. And she said my name like she did when we lost you. Just ducked her head to catch my eyes and said, "Maddy?"

So of course I cried. You know how it goes--you can't fall apart in the moment because you need to get through it, but as soon as you're safe and the most beautiful woman in the world is standing at your door you just fall apart.

Cross didn't seem like she minded. She came in and closed the door behind her and we sat on the bed and she let me just sob into her shoulder. God, Catherine, she smelled just like she used to--that oil and ozone smell of power armor but clean, like nobody else in the wasteland. It just brought it all back again. I cried and cried and cried, and she just held me in her arms. I've spent the last nineteen years wishing I could feel that again. At one time I would have said that I'd pay any price for it, but not now. Janice, and James, and maybe Garza as well. The price was just too steep.

She didn't say anything, even when I finally got a hold of myself and stopped crying. She just sat there and let me look at her. She's older now, of course, but the lines in her face are no different than the freckles. They just belong there. Her hair's buzzed short and there's a scar on her chin that wasn't there before but she's as familiar to me as my own hands.

"You must think I'm a fool," I told her. My nose was running and I didn't want to wipe it on my sleeve but she'd seen me at my worst before and I just didn't have the energy for anything else.

"No," she said. "I think you are human, and I think you're hurting."

"You got me." I couldn't stop looking at her. She was there. She was real.

"I brought you this." She handed me this bottle of water and I broke down again because it was the purified stuff. It was what you wanted to give to everyone and I failed you twice on that count. "I know. But you're dehydrated. Drink it for me?"

How am I gonna say no to that?

While I was trying to calm down enough to drink it she talked to me in that soft voice and said that Garza was doing better, Agincourt and Alex were safe, and so was your little girl. She looked just like you, she said. She almost expected her to look up at the stars and start singing that little song you used to sing.

I still sang it sometimes, I told her, or at least the little I could remember. I missed you so much and I would never hear you sing that song again.

"I remember it," she said.

And she did, Catherine. You never would have believed it but she sang that song just for me. My Paladin Cross, singing, and holding my hand, and so much softer than I remembered her.

_If only I could heal your sorrow_

_Shine on me again_

_I'd help you to find your new tomorrow_

_Shine on me_

And you know me. I cried. I cried and cried and cried, and she held me again. She stayed with me. She must have been holding me still when I finally fell asleep.

Which brings us to now, doesn't it?

She's sleeping and I know if I so much as twitch she'll be awake, but I just want a little longer. A little more time to look at her and remember, you know? I've missed her so much, Catherine. Almost as much as I've missed you.

I don't know what to do. It's over, right? Project Purity barely survived losing you. It won't survive losing James. What hope is there?

You know what his big idea was? The thing that was going to save Project Purity? A GECK. "All we have to do is find a GECK," he told me, "and integrate it into the system, and Project Purity will work on the level we've dreamed." Oh, is that all? A GECK. That is just like him, to talk like it would be not only possible but plausible. All we had to do was find the Garden of Eden. It's absurd, isn't it?

Isn't it?

I don't know. Maybe he's right. We could check vaults in the surrounding area, see if anyone has heard...

I'm doing it again, aren't I? This has all been too much and if I had any sense I would leave the wasteland. Head for the Commonwealth, maybe. I hear the Carnegie Institute is hanging on up there. And instead here I am, still trying to work out your impossible problem. Maybe I'm as bad as James.

I can't do this again, Catherine. It hurts too much and I don't think I could stand one more person's blood on my hands. So I have to leave. I can't stay here, because everywhere I look there you are.

You're in your daughter, your little girl who looks just like you, and you're in James. But you're in Cross, too. You're in faces of wastelanders I've never met and mutants I wish I hadn't. You're in the Citadel walls and the ruined buildings and in the sun and the moon and the falling rain. There is nothing in this wasteland you haven't touched.

I love you and I miss you but haven't I given enough? I tried doing this without you and I can't. You were the life in Project Purity. It's all dead without you. I've done everything I can.

But I can hear you like you're still here with me, singing your little song and telling me how much we'll improve the lives of the people in the wasteland. I know you're right. But I'm... I'm scared, Catherine. I'm so scared.

I wouldn't stay for anyone in the world, not even Cross. I'd like to say I wouldn't even stay for you, but that's what I've done all these years, isn't? Damn you, Catherine. You know I'd follow you to the gates of hell. Why do I have to prove it?

If I stay maybe the Enclave will kill me too and we'll be together again, waiting on Cross to complete our little triumvirate. Maybe we'll get to look at the stars, and maybe you'll sing me that song.

But maybe I won't die. Maybe I'll live and we'll finish this once and for all. I guess that's a nice thought. I'll just have to hang onto it.

Catherine, I love you more than I've ever loved anyone in my life. Maybe that's enough. Maybe with you, and me, and Cross and your girl and all your wild, beautiful dreams, maybe that's enough to weave the hope of a new tomorrow.


End file.
